Here I'm going to start a thread on kathakali padam (Sangeetham) and will be often posting kathakalipadam uploads with all the related details ( like raga, Artists, story etc.)
I welcome all to share similar posts in this thread, and always welcome to share your feedback.

Some days back, there was a kathakali performance at the Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan in celebration of the Onam festival.

Tired of the same-old same-old "Alaipayudhe", "Krishna Nee Begane Baro", etc., of the Bharatha Natyam circuit (though recently a US NRI boy changed that -- not necessarily for the better -- by including "Madu Meikkum Kanne" in his Chennai arangetram; aaaarrrrgh! Is there no depravity to which people will not sink? ), I decided to attend the kathakali peformance.

The show was nothing short of brilliant. The story presented was "Kuchelavritam" where a poverty-stricken Kuchela visits his childhood playmate Krishna who is now King of Dwaraka.

The story was acted out brilliantly. The music went beyond anything you would normally hear in Chennai. With just a maddalam and chenda, played most of the time very softly, providing percussion support and with no koing-koing (that is musicians' parlance for violin) interfering with the music, one could just bask in the glorious vocal rendition.

There was nothing light classical about the music. The longest padam started out in Sankarabharanam, moved thru Abheri, Sri, Atana, Mohanam, etc., seamlessly and back to Sankarabharanam.

At the end of the program, I felt bad that I had not taken a video camera to record the program. There was an official video recorder but the likelihood of getting one's hand on the recording is zilch. Just an audio recorder so that I could listen to the music again would have been good enough.

This program proved that 90% of sabha music (that is, commercial music) in Chennai is just plain trash, aimed at the uninformed and promoted by organizers who are chasing crowds so that they can please their sponsors.

Somewhere someone lamented that Kerala musicians don't know the art of self-promotion. Thank God they don't; because you get good music from them.

For those of you interested, there is a review of the program in "The Hindu" today.

arasi wrote:Thanks, 'Sounds' good, Harimau.
Wonder if I can catch something like this when I'm in Chennai...

Kalakshetra is holding a 5-day series "Nala Charitham" (actually, it should be four evenings but the first evening's show is split into two parts because of time taken up for inaugural speeches, etc.) starting yesterday in celebration of Onam. This particular play was written by Sri Unnayi Warrier who lived in the 17th century.

kathakali or anyone else. Some months ago there was a programme in Tiruvaiyyaru. 2 or 3 sopanam singers came from Kerala and sang the madhyamAvati song of Dikshitar, 'dharmasamvardhani' in the sopanam style at the Panchanadisha temple outside the Ambal sannidhi. It was thrilling it seems. By chance does anyone have a recording of that?

Just to continue from where @harimau had left, kathakali music cannot be compared to Classical music, as of course Classical music is much deeper and richer.. more over kathakali music should only be seen as a music which is used, to support the acting .. its more of a abhinaya sangeetham where the duty of the musician is to give bhava which need to supplement abhinaya. That way kathakali sangeetham has a unique advantage where almost all the the bhavas needs to projected through music.. , which you cant see much in other types of music ( apart from film music to certain extend )

for example here is a padam , which projects bhava Veera ( valour) , which to certain extend goes up to Krodha ( Anger) ..

This is in raga Ahiri, and you can see that the music is of high tempo.. , but of course one doesn't analyze these much about the classical aspect of it.. apart get charged up with it,,.
( the situation of the story is demon Narakasura challenges Indra for a war and harass him.)